Doug E. Doug

Doug E. Doug (born Douglas Bourne; January 7, 1970)^[1] is an American actor. He started his career at age 17 as a stand-up comedian. He played the role of Griffin Vesey on the CBS sitcom Cosby, Sanka Coffie in the film Cool Runnings, and the voice of Bernie in the animated film Shark Tale.

Douglas Bourne was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jamaican father and African-American mother.^[2]

Doug has appeared in a number of films, including Jungle Fever (1991), Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991), Class Act (1992), Cool Runnings (1993), Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), the remake of Disney's That Darn Cat (1997), and Eight Legged Freaks (2002). He was the star of his own short-lived ABC sitcom, Where I Live, a show which won the acclaim of Bill Cosby, and subsequently played Hilton Lucas's boarder and surrogate son Griffin Vesey on Cosby. In 2004, he had a voice role in the animated feature Shark Tale, and also appeared on two episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2004, 2012).

Doug E. Doug started off his career as a stand-up comic at the age of 17. He was first seen at the Apollo Theater by Russell Simmons, who then asked Doug to write and host a syndicated late-night program Simmons produced called The New Music Report. His entrance into film began when he spoke one line in Spike Lee's film Mo' Better Blues.^[3]

Doug is known to movie viewers for his starring role, as the spirited pushcart driver, turned bobsled racer, in Cool Runnings. (This movie is loosely based on the true story, of the first Jamaica national bobsled team, trying to qualify for the Winter Olympics.)

Doug is also known for his roles as the ne'er-do-well Willie Stevens, in Hangin' with the Homeboys; for this role, he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor; he played a class comedian in Class Act; as a soldier, enlisted for unusual duty, in Operation Dumbo Drop; an ill-fated high school student in the horror epic Dr. Giggles; and as an FBI agent in the 1997 remake of "That Darn Cat". In the Warner Bros. science fiction comedy Eight Legged Freaks, he portrayed a paranoid small-town radio host with visions of an alien invasion. In the animated DreamWorks film, Shark Tale, he voiced the jellyfish character Bernie.^[3]

In television, Doug starred in the ABC series Where I Live, a show developed around his own life, for which he served as co-producer. In that series, he voiced a quirky teenager Douglas Saint Martin, growing up in a working-class Caribbean family in New York. He also co-hosted the VH-1 series Rock of Ages, and spent four seasons starring as Griffin, in the television series Cosby. On the Nickelodeon animated show Little Bill, he voiced Percy, the pet store owner. He also guest-starred, in Touched by an Angel, Law and Order: SVU, and NBC's Conviction.

In theater, Doug starred in the musical Purlie, whIch ran briefly in March and April of 2005.^[4]

Doug made his debut as a director/producer with the screenplay Citizen James, in which he also co-wrote and starred in. Citizen James aired on Starz Encore/ BET Movies.^[3]

Doug launched a new YouTube comedy-channel series, The Doug Life Show in late 2012, as part of The Comedy Shaq Network. It is a series of skit comedy and commentaries, very loosely based around the experiences, thoughts, and real life of Doug, which sometimes features his cousin (Sasikumar Ramakrishnan)) with his zany adventures in Kampung Rawa.^[5]

He starred in the 2015 movie An Act of War.

• Doug E. Doug at IMDb